Manchester City legend Yaya Toure has joined Chinese second-tier club Qingdao Huanghai.
The former Ivory Coast international has not played since December following a three-month stint with Olympiakos in Greece.
He is expected to make his debut on Saturday when Qingdao host Zhejiang Greentown.
The 36-year-old was reported to have been on trial with the Chinese club soon after shooting down claims made by his agent in May that he was planning to retire.
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The three-time England Premier League winner wrote on Twitter: “There has been a lot of confusion about my future recently.
“I want to make it clear here that I love football and I’m still in contention to play for a few more years.
“Yes, I’m starting to prepare myself for coaching badges but full-time coaching is not what I’m thinking now.
“I am now ready and focused to take new challenges in playing football.”
Qingdao currently lead the 16-team China League One by four points from Guizhou Zhicheng with the campaign at the halfway stage.
The top two teams will be promoted to the Chinese Super League at the end of the season.
At the start of May, Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk wrongly confirmed the news of the retirement to Russian website Sport 24.
He said: “Yaya has decided to end his career as a champion.
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“The farewell match which Manchester City gave him was, in principle, the real end of his playing career, not only in that team, but in general.
“Yaya is one of the best players in Africa and had one of the brightest careers in the history of African football, so should leave football at its peak. We talked for a long time on this topic.
“Of course every footballer wants to play as long as possible and in terms of his physical condition Yaya could do this at a sufficiently high level for another five years.
“But we came to the conclusion that he, the footballer who played for Barcelona and Manchester City, could not lower the bar.”
But evidently, Seluk got this very wrong.
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